


Colour

by shark_dicks



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire | Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire Versions
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Synaesthesia, domestic hardenshipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 08:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11597067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shark_dicks/pseuds/shark_dicks
Summary: Maxie and Archie learn an interesting fact about one another.





	1. Chapter 1

"Archie, am I boring you perhaps?"

 

"What?  No, 'course not!"

 

The guilty look on his face told Maxie otherwise, and the corners of his mouth  turned up in a smirk of amusement and a calculated hint of self-deprecation.

 

He was well aware of the way Archie's focus would drift when Maxie had been holding forth on a technical subject for a long time.  It was forgivable, he supposed, except that it was Archie who had insisted they look through the scientific journal in the first place.  Maxie usually did his academic reading in digital form, in his own time.  The only reason he had received a physical copy of this particular issue was because he'd been published in it.

 

That was the real reason Archie had wanted to see it, he knew.  Not due to a sudden interest in geology or a desire to hear Maxie's commentary on the paper, but because he was unashamedly proud to see his husband's name in print.  Which was admittedly very gratifying. He could forgive the lapse in attention.

 

"I was listenin'," Archie protested.  Maxie gave only a disbelieving "hmm" in response, his knowing smirk deepening.  But Archie had gone back to gazing down at the journal open on the kitchen bench in front of them.  He clearly hadn't read a single word, except for the author credit to one Prof. M. Matsubusa (occasionally described in biographical information as "Hoenn's foremost expert in the field of seismology").  "Just made me think about something.  S'not important."

 

"More important than listening to me, it seems," Maxie teased, affecting his usual haughty air.

 

Archie snorted.  "But nothin's more important than the sound of the Great Maxie's own voice," he teased back, and grinned his crooked grin.

 

"Precisely," Maxie replied smoothly.  "I'm glad we can agree on that.  But come now, I wrote the paper, I hardly need to review it again.  You might as well tell me what you were thinking about."

 

"I told ya, it's no big deal.  Just thinking how 'M' used to be blue, but it's red now."

 

"What?"  Maxie stared at Archie in confusion.  What in Groudon's name did that gibberish mean?

 

"The letter 'M'," Archie clarified.  "Way back before I knew you, it was blue, or kinda blue-green.  But since I met you, an', heh, everything," (a rather inadequate way to describe the last twenty years, Maxie felt), "it's totally changed; it's always red now."

 

The explanation didn't make any more sense.  Maxie continued to stare at his partner in incomprehension several moments longer, his brain firing away as ceaselessly as usual, until his memory threw out a few factoids and understanding dawned.  "Archie, you're a synaesthete?"

 

"Gesundheit."

 

Maxie sighed and pressed on.  "You have synaesthesia?  You... perceive letters as having specific colours associated with them?"

 

"Huh..?  Yeah... Max', that's what letters _are_."  Archie was looking at him as though he'd just revealed that he didn't know the alphabet.

 

Maxie raised an eyebrow.  Was it possible... that Archie didn't realise not all people were like this?  Did he assume _everyone_ inextricably linked letters with colours?  Perhaps this was the first time it had ever come up in conversation; Archie certainly didn't have the type of constant relationship with the written word that Maxie did.  And indeed, Maxie supposed, if he had been this way his entire life, what reason would he have to think that it was different for others?

 

"Not everybody sees letters that way, Archie," he pointed out.  "Yours is an unusual condition.  Most people don't assign them any particular colour."

 

It was Archie's turn to look bewildered.  "They... don't?  What?  How's that work?"

 

So he really didn't know any different.  Maxie adjusted his glasses.  "I'm no neurologist; that's not a medical journal over there."  Where _had_ he picked up this information?  Something he had read purely out of interest, he seemed to recall.  He'd have to put some time into educating himself on the subject properly now.  "But if I remember correctly, the mechanism for synaesthesia is thought to be a sort of... cross-talk between the senses."  How to describe it without confusing Archie further?  "When you comprehend letters and numbers, the parts of your brain that perceive colour also get involved, for some reason."

 

Archie made no response to this revelation; he appeared dumbfounded.  Perhaps he should have broken it to him more gently, Maxie thought.  It must be quite a shock to learn something like that after almost four decades.  Like discovering you were colourblind, maybe; although it would be more like discovering everyone  _else_ was colourblind.  How would one wrap their head around that?

 

"You must reckon I've gone off the deep end," Archie said suddenly.

 

"What?  Of course not."

 

"I got wires crossed in my head, you said!"  Oh no, he _had_ been tactless.  "You prob'ly think I'm makin' it up."

 

"Hardly.  I seem to know more about it than you do."

 

Archie shot him a look of exasperation, but also such _hurt_ , that Maxie stopped smirking immediately.  "I'm sorry, it was a joke."  He moved around the bench to be closer to Archie, relying on the physical contact to reassure him the way it usually did.  "I mean that it's well-documented.  If I recall correctly, the way you have it is the most commonly reported type--but there were examples of people who experience sound as shapes and colours, or even words as having flavours.  It's not just you."  Maxie reached up to stroke Archie's hair.  "And it's not considered a disorder.  There's nothing wrong with your head."

 

"'Cept for being thick," Archie joked, to Maxie's relief.

 

"Indeed, an entirely unrelated issue." 

 

"So I've got...  What was it, the word?"

 

"Synaesthesia?"

 

"I'm the one that's got it an' I can't even pronounce it.  You _do_ know more about it than me," he admitted gruffly.

 

"Hardly.  I didn't know it was possible for the associations to change," Maxie pointed out.

 

"Yeah, well, it's never really happened for anythin' else," Archie replied.  "Couple of colours got lighter or darker as I got older, maybe.  But that's the only one to end up totally different."

 

“And it took a long time?”

 

“Ages.  Years.”

 

“Since you met me, you said.”  Maxie adjusted his glasses and a knowing smile settled on his face.  “Well, I can see I shall have to research this further, but I don’t think I’m being premature by considering this a compliment.”

 

Predictably, Archie rolled his eyes and scoffed.  “There’s somethin’ wrong with your head too: it’s swollen.”  But he was grinning.

 

“It comes of having brain enough for the both of us,” Maxie retorted mildly.  And he needed the extra space, he thought, for all the things he was yet to learn—about the mind in general, and Archie’s in particular.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt version where Maxie is the synaesthete, not Archie.

“Maxie…”

 

“What did you do?”

 

“I didn’t do anything!”  In fact Archie had flopped down without looking and accidentally pressed something on the remote, but he wasn’t about to tell Maxie that.

 

However Maxie had been at the kitchen counter the whole time, almost directly behind the couch, and therefore had a perfect view of the large smart TV mounted on the opposite wall.  It didn’t take all his brains to work out what Archie’s problem was.  He raised a disbelieving eyebrow and looked from Archie to the screen.  “Then I take it you _intended_ to open a web search?  Were you just getting my attention in order to show me a fascinating video about...”  He paused, there being no obvious way to pronounce ‘AAAAAAaa..;;’, “...that?”

 

“No,” Archie replied shortly.  Maxie was smirking ever so slightly, in that familiar way he had that meant he was teasing.  “I sat on the remote, okay?”

 

“And how is that different to the way you usually operate the TV, or any other technology?”  He sounded amused now, quite openly trying to get a reaction out of Archie.  “Once again you have applied your... considerable talent to it.”

 

“I know it’s hard, but can ya stop thinkin’ about my ass for a sec?” Archie teased back, breaking into a grin.  “I need you to fix the TV.”

 

“I’ll stop thinking about it when you stop thinking _with_ it,” Maxie replied, abandoning whatever it was he’d been looking through and joining Archie on the couch.  “No hurry, of course.  I do appreciate that you have a body that makes up for whatever the head may lack.”

 

“Then if I just gotta use my fine ass to get my way an’ take advantage of your brain, I got no problems.”  Archie relaxed and rested his arms on the back of the couch, deliberately leaving it up to Maxie to retrieve the remote.

 

Despite the good-natured ribbing, Archie knew that Maxie didn’t actually believe he was unintelligent.  In fact Maxie knew perfectly well that unlike himself, Archie hadn’t spent his whole life in front of a screen.  And even if his family had been inclined or able to afford to have the latest gadgets all the time, he doubted delicate electronics would have fared well in the hands of people almost constantly on board a fishing vessel.  Any more than they would survive being sat on.

 

Archie felt clever fingers sneaking their way between the couch cushion and his backside, which he did not object to in the slightest.  “You’ve done enough to my brain,” Maxie accused, innocently continuing the conversation as though his hand wasn’t pressed distractingly against Archie’s ass.  A sudden pinch to the buttock caused Archie to yelp and jump slightly, allowing Maxie to snatch the remote from under him.  “That’s the reason all these letters are blue.”  The faintest hint of smug self-satisfaction crossed his face as he cleared the search from the screen.

 

“The... letters?  Huh?”  Archie had lost interest in watching TV; in fact his head was too clouded with flirtation to register what Maxie had said.  But once he managed to focus he found it still didn’t make any sense to him.  “What letters?”

 

“The letters you typed with your ass.”

 

Archie shivered a little.  He didn’t think he’d ever stop getting a thrill whenever his eloquent, sophisticated husband used cruder language like that, no matter how often he heard it.  He intended to get those sorts of words, and more besides, out of Maxie in the very near future.

 

But for the moment he was curious to know what Maxie’s weird statement meant.  The search text had been plain white on black, he was pretty sure.  He glanced at the TV, but Maxie had already returned it to broadcasting.  There was a film from Kalos playing, complete with subtitles, but they were the same white text.  “I ain’t seen any blue.”

 

“There’s none to see, I was referring to how I—” Maxie paused and looked at him.  “Hold on, have I never mentioned this to you?”

 

“Mentioned what?”

 

“My synaesthesia?”

 

“Never heard of it, so I’m gonna say no.”

 

“In all this time, I failed to bring it up?  Surely not...”  Maxie paused again and seemed to be considering.  “Then again, I didn’t find out it was a condition with a name until I was about twenty-eight.  I believe that was during the period when we were... _not on speaking terms_.”

 

The corner of Archie’s mouth quirked up into a wry smile.  These days they had enough time and distance from that low point in their lives, and the things it had lead them to do, that he could find a dark sort of humour in Maxie’s exaggeratedly delicate way of describing it.

 

“That’s gotta be it, then.  Hard to believe you’d miss an opportunity to talk about yourself otherwise,” Archie teased.

 

“If that’s the way you feel, I won’t tell you,” Maxie threatened, drawing himself up with all his dignity.

 

“Yes you will, you’re dying to,” Archie replied easily.  “Go on.  How d’you say it again?”

 

“Synaesthesia.”

 

“'Synaesthesia’,” Archie repeated.  “So what is it?  Does it hurt?”

 

“No, stop being foolish.”  Archie just grinned at him; he knew Maxie wouldn’t be able to resist correcting him and seizing the opportunity to explain something.  “It’s a neurological trait.  Technically it’s when the stimulation of one sensory path triggers the activation of another, unrelated one, as well.”

 

“Might be a bit _too_ technical for me there, Max’.”

 

“Well, I don’t want to _bore_ you by talking about myself,” Maxie drawled.  “But in my case, it means I perceive letters and numerals as having specific colours associated with them, regardless of their appearance.”

 

Archie had never heard of anything like that—he felt he would definitely remember if Maxie had tried to describe it in the past.  “So, you were lookin’ at that writing before an’ seeing it in blue, even though it’s not?”

 

“Mm, not quite.  I can tell what colour the text is.  It’s more like I... _experience_ a certain colour for the letters no matter what.  I don’t have to be seeing them.”  It must have been obvious from his face that Archie was struggling to see the difference, because Maxie looked at him with a slight frown and tried to clarify.  “Look, if I tell you a letter or number, you know straight away its form and its meaning, right there in your head.  It doesn’t need to be written down.  It’s exactly the same for me, except I know its form, its meaning, and its colour.  That’s just part of what it is.”

 

“I reckon I get it,” Archie said slowly.  “An’ that’s a thing? Other people have it too?”

 

“Indeed.  Grapheme-colour synaesthesia—that is, getting colours from letters—that’s the most commonly reported form.  But it can involve any of the senses.  Things like... spatial sequence synaesthesia, where numbers or dates seem to occupy points in space.  If you had that, you might say that yesterday is nearby," he gestured, "but last year is off in the distance.  Or so is my understanding, at least."  Maxie stopped gesturing and adjusted his glasses.  "It's a fascinating subject.  I think I'd enjoy researching it even if I didn't count myself among those who experience it."

 

Archie felt a sudden sense of guilt.  He hadn't meant to, but he had been asking questions as if it were a medical problem, hadn't he?  As though there was something _wrong_ with Maxie.  Yet from the way he spoke it was clear Maxie didn't see it that way at all.

 

"Hey, Maxie, I'm sorry."

 

"What for?"

 

"If I've been talkin' like you're sick, or something."

 

"You never gave me that impression in the slightest."  But Archie watched his reaction closely; was it his own guilty conscience or did Maxie relax ever so slightly?  Archie could easily imagine he was putting aside an explanation he'd already prepared as to why what he had was _not_ a disorder.

 

"Heh, well, just stop me if I do, okay?"  Archie rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.  He still had questions, but he wanted to proceed tactfully.  "Seems like that brain of yours really did come with all the bells 'n whistles.  You always act like you see something everyone else doesn't 'cause it's true!"  He grinned and playfully poked Maxie in the side.

 

Maxie squirmed away and smirked back at him.  "But that would be the case even if I weren't a synaesthete, of course."

 

Maybe Archie shouldn't have said that.  Maxie's ego was already quite inflated enough.

 

"Well, you are.  How'd we even get onto this, anyway?"

 

"Ah, yes, it was because of the letter 'A' specifically," Maxie replied, with a small, knowing smile.  "An interesting one for me, since it's the only letter that has ever changed colour entirely."

 

"That not meant to happen, then?"

 

"It's very unusual, by all accounts.  I feel it helps make the case for rethinking the definition of synaesthesia as _ideasthesia_ ; that is, the secondary quality of the stimulus is evoked by its meaning rather than its sensory properties--"

 

"You're taking off without me again, Max'."

 

"Right, I'm getting ahead of myself.  Back to the letter 'A'—for most of my life, it was red.  It's not the same for everyone, of course, but I certainly found it quite a strong association.  And immutable, or so I thought.  Imagine my surprise when I noticed that it had started presenting with a different colour in certain contexts."

 

"What contexts?  This what you were saying about it being to do with the meaning, instead of... whatever the other blasted thing you said was.  What it looks like?"

 

"Exactly."  Maxie sounded enthusiastic, and didn't even scoff at Archie's paraphrasing.  He always seemed to appreciate Archie genuinely listening and trying to understand what he was on about.  "I find some letters are quite... weak, or colourless.  Their appearance is almost entirely determined by the ones around them.  And even quite a dominant letter can be altered by the meaning of the word it's part of.  A word like, say, 'aqua' wouldn't look right in red, would it?"

 

"Guess not."  Of course he would use that as an example...  "All right, what about 'magma' then?"

 

Maxie had a small, knowing smile on his face, as though amused by something Archie hadn't noticed yet.  "Do you know, that and my name are possibly the only times when 'A' is red any more.  In any other case, it's blue.  I had no idea such a drastic change was even possible, but after many years of being subjected to a constant and very strong influence..."

 

He trailed off, watching Archie expectantly.  Was he actually suggesting what Archie thought he was?

 

"Like what?"

 

"Oh, I don't know," he replied airily.  "Perhaps someone with great presence and force of personality entered my life.  Someone who so affected me that they changed the very way I think."

 

Archie's heart was suddenly soaring.  He was gazing at Maxie, even leaning in slightly closer.  He knew he must look like some embarrassing kid in the throes of his first romance, but he didn't care.

 

"I suppose you could say that even in the time we were apart, I never got you out of my head."

 

"Maxie..."  Archie couldn't hold back.  He launched himself at his husband and wrapped Maxie up in a tight hug.  Once again the remote was crushed and the TV flipped over to an unused input, but neither of them noticed.  Archie kissed Maxie's face and the top of his head delightedly, and Maxie made a muffled noise of protest as he was dragged over until they were lying in a tangled heap together.

 

When Archie finally relented, Maxie propped himself up enough to straighten his glasses.  Archie was still gazing up at him adoringly, a silly grin on his face.  Maxie wasn't given to being sentimental, but to Archie his statement was one of the most romantic things he'd ever heard.  The implications moved him far more than all the sweet nothings in the world ever could.

 

"So, you're blamin' me?" he said playfully.

 

"Of course.  Unsubtle brute that you are," Maxie teased back, "maybe I should just be grateful that I didn't come away with anything worse than having 'A is for Archie' permanently etched into my mind."

 

Archie beamed.  "An' 'A' is blue 'cause it suits me.  So... what about the rest of my name?  Can you do the other letters?"  The smiled slipped from his face as his brain caught up with his mouth.  He sounded like he thought Maxie was showing him some kind of novelty trick.  "I mean, if you don't mind explainin' it to me more.  I'm not trying to treat you like a performing Spheal.  This is just how things are for you, right?"

 

"It's fine, Archie," Maxie replied with a reassuring smile.  "You can ask me to describe any letter you want.  I love an excuse to talk about myself, remember?" he added wryly, and Archie grinned again.  "As for your name, it's entirely blue, shading towards green at the end."

 

That sounded wonderful, Archie thought.  Like the ocean.

 

"Like the ocean," Maxie added, and Archie could have kissed him.  In fact, he did.

 

What a beautiful way to see the world.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As previously mentioned, I'm extremely grateful to Sam for her help.

**Author's Note:**

> My heartfelt thanks to Sam, http://archiveofourown.org/users/SamCyberCat, for very patiently answering my questions about the experience of this specific form of synaethesia. Despite the amount of research I did myself, I would never have been able to write even this simple thing without her help.


End file.
